A Second Chance
by unlabeledpunk
Summary: Nobodies don't exist. So does that meant that they don't die either? Apparently, since Demyx, Zexion, and Axel survived and go on a mission, with a reluctant Sora, to get their hearts back. Zex/OC Dem/OC Axel Reno /OC
1. Chapter 1

Nobodies. Beings without hearts, feelings, or emotions. In a sense, they don't even exist. I would know, seeing as I am a Nobody. My name's Axel, got it memorized? Or, that's been my name since I became a Nobody. Unlike most Nobodies, I didn't remember my name, so I chose the name of a pretty good drink that I was sure that I had had back as a 'Somebody', as Saix used to call them. You see, my real name is actually Reno...Reno Sinclair, and back when I had my heart, I worked for a company called ShinRa and I was, what people called, a Turk.

My job was fun most of the time. Sure there were the boring assignments, but as a Turk, I got to go and investigate stuff, recruit people into either the Turks, or SOLDIER, go to all sorts of new places, meet an assortment of new people, and fight alongside my partner and best friend, Rude. And, if I had been born on any other world, I would've been able to see a lot of shit that no one else got to see either. Too bad I was born on Gaia, but hell, I got to be up close to it.

You see, my world was home to a lot of freaky creeps, and the so-called 'heroes'. Me? I was one of those, neutral kind of side-line guys at first. That was when one of the freaky creeps, this huge guy, Sephiroth, summoned up a huge attack called Meteor to destroy everyone on Gaia because his mother, a decapitated head mind you, told him to do it. Like I said, freaky creep.

Anyway, the only reason his attack on us failed was because a brave young woman named Aeris Gainsborough saved us. She used another attack to repel Sephiroth's, called Holy, and the Meteor, though it destroyed my home-city, was pushed back and away from everyone else. So, in effect, though her boyfriend, Cloud 'Chocobo-Butt-Head' Strife killed Sephiroth it was Aeris who saved us all. I remember thanking her every-time I saw her afterwards.

I especially thanked her after I met _her_. The only person who ever touched me in a way that, at the time I didn't think possible. The only woman I have ever truly loved. Her name was Kumo Shingetsu, which she told me was Wutain for Cloud Fortress or something, I can't actually remember. All I know is that I loved the girl from the moment I first set eyes on her in Wutai after Rufus sent me and the big guy there for a mission. And, yes, at 15 she was still only a girl. A full seven years younger than me, not that it mattered at the time because she didn't really like me at first. In fact, I think she hated me.

Yet, she was in 'love' with my boss, Rufus. And I use that term loosely, because she didn't really know him. All she knew was that he was handsome and he 'promised' change from his father's strict policies (she was also only 15 after all.). He was actually a jackass, believe it or not. But anyway, when Rufus wasn't sending me and Rude on these strange missions, like trying to find Sephiroth's mommy's head (Jenova), I would always find myself back in Wutai, …stalking? …Yeah, _legally_ stalking her.

It wasn't even two years after the whole Meteor incident when three 'brother's', Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo tried to destroy the world, like Sephiroth. Apparently, the three were 'Remnants' of Sephiroth, which should've sent warning flags up in our heads, but it didn't. I now know that those three were like me. Nobodies. They shouldn't have ever existed. Me and Rude, we kept two of the 'brothers' busy while Cloud went off to be a hero, again. You're probably wondering, 'How in two years, do you go from not caring about the planet to wanting to save the planet?' One word: Love. I wanted to save it for Kumo's sake.

As soon as Cloud saved the world, again, becoming Mr. 'I'm so fucking awesome and emo at the same time!' I went back to Wutai, to check up on Kumo. I hadn't been able to stal-…er, I mean, get to know her better, in almost four months. So it really surprised me when I saw her at the boat dock as my boat was coming in. As if she was waiting for me. I remember shaking my head, thinking that that's not right, but, as soon as she saw me on the boat, her eyes never left me. She watched me the whole time as I got off, and as soon as I touched down on the ground, she ran over and kissed me.

I kissed her back, holding her tightly and I didn't regret it. I loved her. She was dearer to me than anyone could ever be, but I would never say that out loud. I kind of had a reputation to keep, but I think she knew how much she meant to me. She was pretty damn perceptive for a 17 year old. And no, I wasn't breaking any laws, on Wutai at least. In Wutai a person was considered an adult at 17. So, every chance I got, I would go to Wutai and just hang out with her, just so I could be close to her.

Then, her 18th birthday came, and I took her, on my helicopter, back to Kalm and Edge. I got to show her the Midgar Restoration Program that I was part of and showed her all there was to see. She also got to meet my friend, Rude, and Elena and Tseng, two of my co-workers (though Tseng was technically my boss). Then, I allowed her to meet Rufus Shinra himself, my true boss and the meeting I was most nervous about. I mean, he had turned into a really nice guy since the incident in Midgar two years prior and I was afraid that Kumo would leave me for him, leaving me an empty, soulless shell of the man I had been.

I was so happy when, afterwards, she pulled me into Tifa's bar, (I still remember the funny looks she and I got from Cloud and his crew) and said, "Reno Sinclair, I'm insulted that you would think that I'd leave you for him," (once again, I point out just how perceptive she was) she then pulled my head down and looked me directly in the eyes and said, "God damn it Reno, I love you. Always will. And I promise that no one, and I mean no one, will ever change that. Not even Mr. Rufus 'I'm-so-amazing' Shinra himself."

I…wanted to marry her. In fact, I bought the ring two weeks later and was going back to my apartment, where she was staying at currently, when it happened. The attack from those damnable creatures. The Heartless. The Heartless are beings that rely on instinct, only to gather hearts from other creatures to make more heartless. They are essentially only the darkness left in a person's heart when they have been lost in the darkness.

I ran as fast as I could back to my apartment, to make sure Kumo was safe, and when I got there, she was safe. I was so happy, I could've broken down and cried, but, at that moment, the biggest Heartless I have ever seen destroyed our apartment building. I barely managed to save me and Kumo. As soon as we were outside of the wreckage, I saw Cloud and his friends, and Rude and my 'friends' show up, ready to save as many people as we could, and to try and take down the thing that was in our world.

I told Kumo to run, and she did, with Tifa, Elena, Yuffie, and Aeris, all of them also told to run, and we fought. We were winning too, that is, until the giant Heartless pulled this one attack that would hit you with pure darkness. A lot of people fell before the onslaught of that attack. One of the beams went awry and began to head towards Kumo, who had stayed behind after all to help people who were hurt, and my body reacted. I ran as fast as I could and straight into the beam. It knocked my backwards into another building and I remember feeling numb, unable to move.

That's when I remember a small, black creature come up from the floor and jump up piercing my chest, his claws digging into my heart and ripping it out. It was strange. Seeing my heart like that anyway. It was larger than I thought, and a warm pinkish-reddish color. I also watched, as my vision began to blur, it crush my heart and leave, just as everyone got up there and saw the sorry state I was in. Kumo ran forward and I could barely make out her tears. I barely managed to croak out 'Don't cry,' and I pulled out the ring I had been going to give her.

"Will you marry me?" I barely got it out as I began to go numb, my body going cold. I saw Kumo, with shaking hands, take the ring and look at me, unable to stop crying.

"Yes…I will marry you Reno…"she broke down into tears again, and I wanted to hug her, hold her, do something to ease her pain, but I couldn't. I was falling into the darkness and I know my body was fading away. As I fell into that darkness, I began to forget. Older memories played out before me before disappearing from my brain, followed by images of friends, colleagues, people I'd sometimes hang out with, even Cloud-Breath and his friends. The last thing I forgot was Kumo. All her emotions, all the memories I had held close. Her smiling, laughing, angry, afraid, sad, and then, finally, her accepting my proposal and crying.

I don't remember much after that, only an oblivion that wanted to encompass me forever. But something began to annoy me, something I couldn't just swat away or get rid of and it was pulling me away from that sweet oblivion that I knew only of. I opened eyes that felt like they had been weighted down by sixty pound weights and slowly began to look around, trying to lift my head, though the more I tried to move my head, the dizzier I got. I was in an alleyway in what appeared to be a city, and for some reason, it seemed familiar to me, like I had been in a city before, but I just couldn't remember.

That's when I noticed that it was raining, and that must've been what woke me up. And it wasn't the normal type of rain either, though I couldn't really remember what normal rain was. But, there was something different about it. Something almost kind of…sad? ...I couldn't tell. The feeling eluded me, but it was part of a feeling, that I was sure of. I finally managed to stand up and I made my way through the alley and into the city. The large, quiet, eerily empty city. It had no life, no feeling, nothing. It was empty…and that feeling I could feel also. I felt empty, and couldn't remember why I felt empty. It was weird.

As I passed by a store window, I stopped and looked at my reflection, walking closer to the glass to look at myself better. I had bright red hair, slicked back and spiky with it a little past my shoulders. My eyes were bright green with cat-like pupils, yet somehow they seemed kind of empty, and I had pale skin. I was extremely tall and thin, and the most distinguishing feature were the two purple upside-down teardrop shapes under my eyes. And, the more I looked at my face, the more I memorized it, the more I realized that, there was something wrong with it. Like, there was something just a little off or a little different. I just couldn't tell what.

And that's how they found me. Staring at my reflection in the glass, trying to find just what was wrong with my face. The guy in charge, or so I guessed since he was the one to step forward and pull down his hood, showing off his tanned features, silver hair and amber eyes. He said his name was Xemnas and he asked me what my name was. I looked at him for a second and almost had a panic attack. I couldn't remember my name. So I said the first thing that popped into my head.

"Ale!" The look he gave me was priceless. It was the kind of face that seemed to say, 'Are you serious?' and 'Are you insane?' at the same time. I somehow felt like I had been on the receiving end of that look several times, but I couldn't remember from where or when. I just felt like I had.

"Ale?"

"Yep! Ale, A-L-E. Got it memorized?" The guy, Xemnas nodded and the letters and an X appeared in mid-air and merged together, the letters having been smoky, shadowy apparitions. When they all pulled away, the word AXEL hung there in mid-air, seeming to stare down at me.

"Now your name is Axel. Get it memorized." It wasn't a question, it was an order and he signaled to me to leave with him and his, 'buddies'. I shrugged, having nothing better to do, and followed them into the darkness.

The rest you don't have to know about. Well, my death was pretty cool, but I don't want to go into details about that either. So that probably makes you wonder, 'If you're dead, how are you remembering this and telling us about this?' Well, it's pretty simple actually. Nobodies don't exist, correct? So, that also means that, when a Nobody 'dies' they don't die. How can something that doesn't exist die? No, instead, our body fades away and comes back together in another world. Who knew?

unlabeledpunk: Oh…My…God…that was hard to write. I'm not even going to lie! That was pretty damn difficult to write! I mean…*looks back and is awed*

Kumari: Well, well, well Mistress. I am impressed. This is truly awe-inspiring work that you have here. I especially like how you wrote the death scene, very dramatic.

Kumo: I don't! My poor Reno/Axel! *huggles Axel plushy to chest*

Chelsea: Holy shit that's amazing!

unlabeledpunk: Well…now that that's over, R&R…please?


	2. A Strange Reunion

Waking up to another puddle in his face was never the way Axel thought he'd wake up again. Not after the first time he met Xemnas and became a member of Organization XIII. But, wake up to another puddle in his face he did, and so he sat up on his hands and knees, spluttering, trying to get the dirty water from out of both his nose and his mouth. Once he felt that he had gotten enough of the gritty water out of his mouth and his nose wouldn't try to drown him in the near future whenever he breathed, he looked up from the ground and slowly stood up.

He was in an old forest that much he could gather on his own. That and it was raining, the cold water hitting his face softly and rolling down his cheeks, making it seem like he was crying. 'I guess this is the closest to crying I can get, seeing as I can't feel emotion and all.' The thought was his own, but the image that flashed before his eyes was unbidden and he nearly fell over in shock.

_A young woman sitting next to him in a chair, crying hard, as if unable to stop. He can't see her face, it hidden behind her hands and hair. "Don't…cry…" He knew it was his voice, but it didn't sound like his voice. For one, it was way too gravelly and rough sounding, not surprising since, talking made it fell like he had rocks rubbing against the inside of his throat. And secondly, he didn't hear the lilt of amusement he should usually have in his voice. Either that or a touch of cocky mixed in with a little annoyed. She looked up at him, her eyebrows knitted together in anger and she stared at him, thoroughly shocked and upset._

"_Don't cry? Don't cry?! God damn it Reno! You could have died back there, and here you are, telling me 'don't cry'. Are you aware of how scared I was back there!? Are you?" She looked at him with wide, innocent brown eyes that had thick black lashes that touched her cheeks whenever she blinked. Her almost black hair framed her face and she had small, thin features that he couldn't help but absolutely love, features that had tears running down them._

_All together, she was beautiful, even when she was sad and crying. "Kumo…I'm fine now. See?"_

After that image, it seemed like the flood-gates opened and all of his memories came back to him, hitting him hard. He remembered being a kid living in a city called Midgar. He remembered the death of his mother by his father's drunken hands and very nearly dieing after his father, still in a drunken rage, attacked him with a knife. He remembered waking up in the hospital to see a strange man with short brown hair and a severe attitude, just standing there, watching him, before he fell back asleep.

He remembered waking up again, but this time, a man with longish black hair done up in a short ponytail was there to greet him. A man named Tseng who told him that he had killed his father in self-defense and that a group called the Turks wanted him to join in their ranks. He remembered joining in the Turks and going through all of the training with another guy named Rude and a girl who said her name was Cissnei. He remembered being really good with a weapon called an Electro-Mag Rod.

He remembered being involved in a lot of stuff that he considered not fun at first, but then got involved with a lot of the cooler stuff, especially after the first guy he saw, Verdot, left the Turks and was branded a traitor. He remembered Cloud, Tifa, Aeris, Vincent, Nanaki, Barret, Sephiroth, Yuffie, Rufus, and Elena, everything that happened in his life. And, he especially remembered Kumo. Her hating him, her introducing him to her friends when he wouldn't go away, her first kissing him, the day he changed.

He didn't know when he fell to the ground, but he had, sometime during his 'walk' down memory lane, and he looked down at the muddy ground, his fingers trying to grab a hold onto anything to keep him connected, keep him from falling into an endless oblivion of half-forgotten memories and the remnants of a feeling called 'guilt' that tried to eat away at the hollow that once housed his heart.

He slowly breathed and tried to right himself by standing up, but his wobbly legs couldn't hold him up and he leaned back against a tree. He was cold, but he didn't want to move, he felt too tired as it was, and so he just leaned back, allowing the cold water to splash against him in an almost hypnotic dance.

As the rain slowed and then finally stopped, he opened eyes he hadn't realized he'd closed and almost gasped. The moon had come out of hiding sometime as the rain stopped, and he was standing in a forest of white trees, next to a lake with a house that looked like a conch-shell at the far end. 'But…this is…the Forgotten City!'

The rumbling of something coming towards him alerted him to another visitor and he jumped back, instantly going into fight mode. Fire engulfed his hands and formed into his trademark chakrams and he waited for a second. A large, black motorcycle came into view and a blonde-haired man, sitting atop it stopped in front of him. The man pulled off the goggles he was wearing, revealing the bright, mako-enhanced eyes of a SOLDIER, and stared at Axel for a moment, his face one of shock.

"Shiva…Reno?" Axel was silent for a moment before he dropped his guard, letting his chakrams fade back into flames.

"I…I wish. The name's Axel now. A-X-E-L, got it memorized, Cloudy?" Cloud just sat there, staring as another rumbling sound was heard overhead, before a large air-ship came down and landed somewhere behind them.

"Alright kid, do ya know what th' source o' that strange light fallin' wa-" Another blonde came out of the airship and stopped to gape at Axel as several other familiar faces came out and stopped.

"What seems to be the problem, Cloud?" The familiar, smooth voice filled the air and Axel picked his head up to see a, now walking, Rufus Shinra come towards them and stop, Rude, Elena, and Tseng stopping too. "Reno…? Bahamut…I thought, we thought…didn't you die?"

Axel smirked and shook his head. "Nope, didn't die. And the name's not Reno anymore. It's Axel. Got it memorized?" He touched his finger to his head in his usual stance and continued, "And I'm not what you'd call human anymore. In fact…I shouldn't even exist, seeing as I'm like Kadaj and his gang, and I'm a Nobody." The small speech stunned everyone into silence, until…

"Reno?" Axel's eye's widened and he turned to look at a familiar face, now older, framed by dark brown hair and with large brown eyes.

"…Kumo."


End file.
